


Domino Effect

by nightsstarr



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fantastical Felannie Week, Glenn lives AU, duscur never happened au, not that it's relevant to the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsstarr/pseuds/nightsstarr
Summary: Annette and her family arrive in Fhirdiad for the annual ball to celebrate the arrival of springtime. Annette sees more familiar faces than she counted on.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63
Collections: FantasyFelannieWeek2020





	Domino Effect

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just barely on time but work kicked my butt last night. This is honestly... another piece that I can easily continue. And may have already outlined a crazy story for lol. I can't just finish things. But I'm marking it as done for now, because the story is complete this way. Who knows if I'll ever have time to add more.

Annette Dominic stepped out of her family’s carriage, her hand in the gloved hand of a Blaiddyd family servant. She still managed to roll on her ankle, and the servant shot her a confused glance. “Are you alright, Miss?”

“Yes, yes,” Annette said, and she straightened out the intricate leather mask which rested on her face. “Sorry, it’s difficult to see with all this!” she said brightly, gesturing to her head.

“My daughter is not the most graceful, it’s true,” Gustave said affectionately, and the carriage rocked as his bulky frame emerged behind his daughter. He sported a full face mask, holes only for his eyes. He made a self-deprecating joke about how his beauty wearing the mask finally made him worthy of standing next to his wife, for which she and Annette scolded him. 

Her mother, Celine Dominic, swept out of the carriage next, with all the grace Annette did not have. Her blonde curls fell around her shoulders, and her green dress matched her eyes, the skirt full enough so that she looked truly noble and courtly, but not so full that she looked lost in it, like Annette sometimes did in a fuller skirt. She wore a thin mask around her eyes, carefully set with a smattering of jewels that caught the light. 

Her mother encouraged Annette to have fun with her dress, so she opted for a vibrant gold over cream-colored layers, sunny like the impending summer. They still managed to catch the light, and they matched the sapphire earrings that hung at her ears. The collar hung at the very ends of her shoulders, curving downward into a modern but modest neckline, and a thick gold necklace gifted by her mother hung from her throat. 

Annette’s mask was one she made by hand, painstakingly curing, liming, and tanning the leather herself. She’d chosen a three-quarter mask style, so it covered almost all of her face on one side and the other was only covered above her eye, and the leather was worked into swirling designs that took months to achieve. She’d painstakingly done her eye makeup to compliment the mask, and she thought she’d done a really nice job.

There were stairs leading up to the ballroom, and her father took both Annette’s and her mother’s arm in each of his and led them up to the ballroom, which let out directly onto a wide balcony where people were milling in and out.

Her parents immediately veered off to speak to some of the Lords, an activity which did not interest Annette at all. 

She furtively glanced around the ballroom as her parents spoke to people with bad attitudes that Annette had never met, looking for Mercedes. 

Her friend from their days together as teenagers, Mercedes was a few years older than Annette, technically a noble but also technically a commoner. It was her wonderful acts of charity that landed in the prestigious inner circle of Faerghus’s well-to-do, and probably also her Crest. They became fast friends at the School of Sorcery, and Annette was excited to see her again.

The masks were adding a layer of difficulty to the task that Annette wasn’t ready to grapple with, but she was confident she’d be able to find Mercie no matter how she was dressed. 

When she last saw Mercedes, she sported a long hairdo off to the side with a black bow that Annette had given her. 

She slipped away from her parents and ducked past people, looking for any blonde-haired young woman who would looked to be around twenty-five, as Mercie would be. 

It took a few times tapping on the wrong Lady’s shoulder, but Annette was  _ tackled _ from behind, slender arms thrown around her and blonde hair falling in her face. 

She twisted in the other girl’s arms. “Mercie!” she cried, and threw her arms around her neck in a real hug. “Oh, but how did you recognize me?” Annette asked, grinning.

“Nobody else has hair quite like yours,” Mercedes said, and she twirled her finger around one of the pieces of hair Annette had kept down from her updo to frame her face. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your bangs, but there’s no mistaking the only redhead in the room!” 

“Ah, you must be Miss Dominic,” a boy’s voice said, and actually, it belonged to a boy she knew. She pulled away from Mercie hesitantly to cock her head at-- “Lorenz Hellman Gloucester,” he said with a bow, flourishing his arms ostentatiously. “Mercedes was just telling me all about you.”

“Um, yes, Lorenz. It’s me, Annette. We went to school together in Fhirdiad. Don’t you remember…?”

Lorenz blinked at her, his purple eyes seeming pale from behind his black mask. He was growing out his violet hair, which was a blessing because Annette had never been a fan of his old hairstyle. “Were you? Were you a reason or faith specialty?”

“Reason,” Annette said, glancing to Mercedes. “Same as you.”

“My,” Lorenz said, pressing his fingers to his forehead. “I don’t seem to remember.”

Lorenz had always been a bit snobby, but of course he remembered Mercedes. Boys always remembered Mercedes. Annette frowned at him. 

“Annie, your mask came out perfectly!” Mercedes chirped, kindly sparing her from a confrontation. 

“Oh, thanks! It took me months to make. Yours looks nice, too!”

Mercedes was dressed in a skirt that was full but somehow more form-fitting than Annette’s, and the collar was high and modest with ruffles. She wore silver to complement Annette’s gold, and her mask was a pretty gray that caught the light. Hers was a plainer domino mask than Annette’s, but she’d bought hers already made and painted it herself with black swirling designs. It flared out around her temples and framed her wavy hair, which she’d cut to a length just below her shoulders, with shorter hair at the front to frame her face. She looked pretty as ever, and the silver mask highlighted her indigo eyes well. 

There was a string quartet at the front of the dance floor, and they picked up the notes of a slower song.

“Ah, Mercedes, you promised me a dance, and this song is one of my favorites.” Lorenz held out his hand to her and Mercedes grimaced at Annette as she took it. 

“We’ll be back, Annie,” she promised, effectively ruining Annette’s plans for the night.

Stupid Lorenz.

Bound navy hair passed by in front of her, and Annette immediately recognized another one of her classmates, Glenn Fraldarius.

Half out of spite for Mercie, who she was  _ just a little  _ mad at for abandoning her to dance with a boy, she leaped at him. 

“Oh, Glenn!” she called. He didn’t stop at her voice, and she hurried over to him as he walked. “Wait!” she cried, and she touched his elbow. He turned to appraise her, and although it was hard to tell behind his black domino mask, recognition did not seem to be the emotion on his face. That figures. Lorenz didn’t recognize her and he had been in her year, studying her specialty. At least Glenn was three years her senior, and he had specialized in faith. 

“It’s me. Annette?” she said, hoping to jog his memory. He tilted his head at her slightly, and she added, “Of Dominic?”

His expression did not change, but he bowed slightly. “Right, of course.”

“How have you been?” Annette asked.

“Well,” Glenn answered, and he was still looking at her like he had no idea who she was

Annette stopped a servant carrying a circular tray laden with champagne as he passed by, and she plucked a drink from it. Glenn did the same, and they drank together. She wondered if he felt as awkward as she did. 

“How is your family?” she asked, giving him something familiar to latch onto. Perhaps he could ask about hers and the details would help him remember her. 

“Fine, fine,” Glenn said, and he sipped from his glass.

He did not ask about Annette’s family. 

From the edge of the dance floor, Annette could hear Mercedes giggling at something Lorenz had said. She scowled over at them and took her own sip of champagne. Annette didn’t particularly like alcohol, but the bubbles on her tongue and the acrid taste were a nice distraction. 

“Has Gloucester offended you somehow?” Glenn asked, and Annette wasn’t sure if she should be upset that he remembered Lorenz and not her or glad they had something in common to talk about. 

“Not really, except by being his usual self,” Annette said with a sharp sigh. 

Glenn laughed at this, little more than a small scoff, and Annette grinned. It was no small feat getting him to laugh, she remembered from their time at school. 

She glanced over to Mercedes and Lorenz, watching them spin slowly around the dance floor, and Mercie didn’t seem  _ nearly  _ as annoyed with him as Annette felt. A jealous claw curled in her stomach. 

“Ugh,” Annette scoffed, and she took another angry sip of her drink. 

Glenn followed her eyes. “Jealous of your friend?” he asked, and he was looking through the crowds of people for someone else. She was probably boring him, but it felt nice to vent to someone, especially since she really expected not to run into anyone she knew besides Mercedes.

_ “No,” _ she said tartly. “As if I would ever be jealous of dancing with Lorenz. He’s just not the nicest person, you know? And Mercie is--well, you remember from school, I’m sure.”

He frowned at her and his attention was on the dance floor again. 

“Do you not remember Mercie, either? Everyone remembers Mercie. Not remembering me is, like, expected. But Mercie? She studied Faith, like you.”

Glenn turned his attention back to her. “Um… Miss--Dominic, was it? I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

She waved her hand at him. “It’s totally fine! Lorenz didn’t recognize me either, and he was even in my class. But that’s not the point. The  _ point _ is that Mercie and I were supposed to hang out for the first time in  _ months, _ and she’s being all…  _ whatever _ over there with Lorenz. And it’s none of my business! But also… Mercie’s my best friend, and she shouldn’t be hanging around with jerks.”

Glenn tilted his head at her. He opened his mouth to say something, but the song suddenly changed rhythm, and Annette gasped as Lorenz pulled Mercedes closer and they adjusted their feet to dance to the new song. 

_ “Did you see that?” _ Annette hissed, scandalized now. “She said one song! She’s probably just too nice to tell him to shove off.”

Glenn peered over at them, and he took a hearty mouthful of his champagne. “It seems to me like she’s enjoying herself,” he said with a shrug, and Annette glared up at him. But Mercedes dropped her head low, and she covered her mouth delicately as she laughed at something he said. 

Annette tipped her head back as she drained her glass and set it down on the nearest available. “Excuse me. I’m just going to get some air.”

All around the ballroom were smaller balconies, and she let herself out onto one. It felt good to escape from the crowd, to stop staring at Mercedes and working herself into an upset frenzy over Lorenz Hellman Gloucester. 

She soothed herself by singing the silly lyrics to The Macaron Song, a song she and Mercedes had made up together, designed to help annette pipe just enough dough onto the baking sheet. Macarons were hard to make. 

“I didn’t realize you had such a passion for baking, Miss Dominic,” a familiar voice said, and she spun away from the railing, startled, to look over at Glenn. 

“Wh-what are you doing out here?” Annette demanded, blushing. Again.The champagne was really getting to her head.

He shrugged. “You seemed upset. Besides, it’s much nicer out here than it is in there.”

“I made it through the School of Sorcery without letting one of my silly songs slip,” she said, distressed. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d forget all of this, like you forgot me before?”

He leaned on the balcony next to her and Annette noticed, for some reason, the way some of his hair had slipped loose from its low pony’s tail and was swaying in the wind. “I don’t think I could forget  _ that. _ And that footwork was admirable, too. Do you fence, Miss Dominic?”

She wanted to melt into the floor. Was Glenn Fraldarius, the stoic, sharp-tongued, top-of-his-class soon-to-be Holy Knight,  _ next Duke of Faerghus _ … teasing her? She must have been misremembering things from their school days, too, because outside of occasionally taking up the same space in the library, he hadn’t really spent much time talking to her. Or anyone, for that matter.

She didn’t know if she should comment on this at all, when suddenly the glass door to the ballroom opened behind them and the music swelled as it did.

"Felix!" a woman called, a blonde with deep green eyes that Annette could see through her mask, and she glanced around, confused. It was only her and Glenn on the balcony right now. "Felix!" she called again, and Glenn sighed and turned to her.

_ "What?"  _ Glenn demanded, irate.

"Dimitri was looking for you." Her pretty green eyes landed on Annette, and she tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. "Hello. Sorry to interrupt."

"Just tell the Boar I'm busy," Glenn--who Annette was beginning to think was not Glenn at all--said, his mouth set in a tense frown. "I'll be in in a few minutes."

The blonde girl rolled her eyes, and with a polite nod at Annette she ducked back inside. 

"That girl, she--she called you something else."

"Yeah," he said. "That was my brother's fiancee. My older brother, Glenn."

Annette blinked up at him, not understanding. "But this whole time I was talking to you, I thought--"

“People get us confused, I suppose with these damn masks on it’s even more understandable. Here,” he said, and he reached behind his head and pulled at the ties holding his domino mask to his face, and he let it drop forward before pulling it away. 

He  _ did _ look strikingly like his brother, although now Annette found herself struggling to remember exactly what Glenn looked like, anyway. Just that his hair was the same navy color, and his mouth was always set in the same slight frown, and that his voice was very similar.

"You knew? And you let me go on and on? Goddess, I feel like such an idiot! I don't even know you, and I told you all kinds of things! I was so horrible about Lorenz! Why didn't you stop me?"

“I did  _ try _ to tell you, back in there,” he said, gesturing through the glass doors. “You didn’t really let me get a word in edgewise. And anyway, I also went to school with Goucester at the Officer’s Academy, not the School of Sorcery. I thought you were a classmate I’d forgotten, but now I’m almost certain that I would’ve remembered you.”

A blush colored her cheeks, and Annette was glad for the mask, even though it only covered one side of her face completely. “What is  _ that  _ supposed to mean?”

“I don’t think I could forget your voice,” he said, and now that it was clear that he wasn’t an old classmate trying to make conversation, Annette knew that he  _ definitely  _ was teasing her.

"Oh!" Annette cried, stomping her foot. Her face was burning beneath her mask. "You villain! You curr! You evil man, you!"

Not-Glenn only smiled at her, and for some reason, even as angry as she was, a swooping sensation stole her breath from her lungs. Now that she could properly see his eyes, they were a pretty golden color, reflecting the warm yellow light from inside the ballroom, softening the sharp features of his face, and long eyelashes only made them look even more striking than they already were.

"The name's Felix," he said simply, ignoring the fact that she was insulting him and that  _ he  _ had insulted  _ her. _

She grew hotter still, beneath her mask. "You're a liar, and a--a creep! You made me trust you under false pretenses!"

"Now, Miss Dominic," Felix said, and he took a sip from his glass easily. "I did no such thing. You began speaking and I did not correct you. Isn't it polite to let a lady speak before interrupting?"

"I was not talking that  _ whole _ time!" Annette insisted indignantly. 

"Very nearly," Felix said.

"That's it! You've done nothing but insult me, Felix Fraldarius,” Annette said, and she moved to push past him, but he put a hand on her shoulder and kept her in place. 

“One moment, Miss Dominic,” Felix said, and Annette was about to light a sigil in her hand to throw at him. “I must say, I feel a bit at a disadvantage. You know who I am now, and I still have no idea who you are.”

“That’s right,” Annette said. “And that is how I intend for things to end between us.”

“Surely you can’t mean that,” Felix said. “It’s only polite for you to take off your mask, as I have done.”

He wasn’t  _ wrong, _ especially since he so far outclassed her in the ranks of nobility, but Annette didn’t care about  _ politeness _ just then. She was about to say so when his golden eyes flickered in the candlelight, and Annette cursed herself for her weak constitution. 

“Sir Fraldarius,” she began, but she wasn’t sure how to continue. She ducked her head down, trying not to look at him too much because it was  _ doing things  _ to her mind--that and the champagne, probably. Felix caught her by the chin, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and he looked down at her sharply. 

“I never told you to address me as such,” he said, and Annette wasn’t sure if it was the champagne or something else, but she felt her tongue go numb. “It’s Felix. Please.”

“Fine then,  _ Felix,”  _ she said, exasperated. “I’d like to go in and return to my friend.”

Felix moved his fingers from her chin to her cheek, the one which the mask did not cover, and she leaned into him quite by accident. “I would be honored if you would do me the benefit of removing this cursed mask,” he said, and his voice was low, with a  _ growly _ quality, and Annette could hardly focus. 

_ “Felix,” _ she said, glancing at all the people on the dance floor through the glass doors. Her parents would soon wonder where she was. 

“Please,” he murmured, and he’d dropped his head low so that his voice vibrated as it brushed past her skin, warm and full  _ something  _ that made shivers run down Annette’s spine. “I’d very much like to see your face, Miss Dominic.”

Her mouth was dry and wet at the same time, and she gulped as she looked up into his molten eyes, and she couldn’t breathe. She reached up into her carefully coiffured hair, and as she pulled at the ribbon holding her mask in place she also pulled at the ties holding her hair. She felt her hair tumble over her shoulder as she wordlessly pulled at the ribbon, and no sooner had she undone the knot at the back of her head than Felix was pulling away the carefully-made leather, the gem stones on it reflecting the light of the party inside, and stooping to press his mouth into hers firmly. 

Annette’s father was willing to wait until Harpstring Moon next month, when she would turn twenty, to start taking bids for her hand and arranging courtships. As such, she’d never kissed a man before, but it was much the same as she’d read it in novels from Castle Dominic’s extensive library. 

He moved slowly, giving Annette plenty of opportunity to reject his advance, but she could hardly breathe, let alone perform any higher level of decision-making. He was warm against her, and eager, his mouth pressing hard against hers. She had been holding her hand in a tightly clenched fist, but it occurred to her that she’d like to  _ touch _ Sir Fraldarius--Felix--as he kissed her, and she brought her hand to the nape of his neck to rest in his navy hair. 

He’d rested a hand at her hip, and he was pulling her close, one hand in her now-loose hair, coaxing her to tilt her head back, and Annette wasn’t sure if it was the champagne or the thrill of the entire circumstance that made her sweep her tongue against his lower lip. She had to wind her hand into his shirt beneath his jacket just to make sure she didn’t collapse. 

She  _ moaned _ as he separated their lips, and she gasped as he trailed his mouth over her jaw, working his way past the cold metal of her mother’s necklace to the soft skin where her shoulder met her neck. 

She came to her senses just enough to push him back halfheartedly. “Felix,” she gasped, and his hand was still tight on her hip.

Mercie would be so  _ ashamed _ of her. 

She blinked up at him, cognizant of her bare face as she did so. “Oh,” she said, and she tightened her hands into fists at her sides. “Oh,  _ no,” _ she murmured. 

“What a pretty face you have, Miss Dominic,” Felix said, and as he did he brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Wait--Felix!” she gasped, as though he’d bewitched her, and she snatched her mask from his fingers. “You’ve  _ ruined-- _ I’m supposed to be getting  _ engaged  _ next month,” she said, her face a brilliant scarlet, she knew without checking. 

“Really?” he asked, and his voice sounded incredibly interested in what she had to say for the first time that evening. 

“Yes!” 

“To whom?” he asked, and his amber eyes seemed so sharp she wondered if she could stand to touch his face again. 

“Well, I don’t-- _ I don’t know,”  _ she admitted, and Felix frowned at her. “My father is in there  _ right now _ garnering suitable offers of marriage for me to inundate me with on my twentieth birthday.”

“Twenty,” Felix repeated. “What a spinster you’ve become.”

“Hey--” Annette began, but he interrupted her, as rude as he’d been the whole time. 

“And when, exactly, is that?”

“What?” Annette demanded, confused by his questioning.

“Your birthday,” Felix responded impatiently. 

“Oh. It’s--” she began automatically, but she cut herself off. “I don’t see why it should matter to you, actually, Sir Fraldarius!”

Felix frowned at her, calculating. “I’m sure I’ll see you again, Miss Dominic,” he said, and he bowed, with absolutely none of the pomp and circumstance Lorenz had shown, and for some reason this endeared him to her. 

He turned away from her and she blinked, confused. “Wait. What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “Felix?” she called, but he was already slipping through the door into the ballroom. 

She felt cold, suddenly. Even at the end of Great Tree Moon, it was cold in northern Faerghus. She missed the more temperate climate of Dominic. She didn’t have any right to, but she also missed Felix pulling her into him, his hands warm on her skin. 

Perhaps she could get Mercie to lend her her shawl. 

If only she could figure out how to get rid of Lorenz.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspo for Annette's mask: https://images.app.goo.gl/VfHaftPi95tAe4X76
> 
> Leave some nice comments because work is terrible and I could use some cheering up! Or any comment. 
> 
> Or follow me on twitter for Annette fanart spam/fanfic thoughts! https://twitter.com/cuttingaleforce


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